For 20 plus years Jacob had been living under the impression that his beloved Joseph was dead and gone forever. In Genesis 45:27, he finally learns the truth, and the text says when his sons convinced him that Joseph was still alive, “the spirit of their father revived.”
Jacob was revived by what must have seemed to him to be the resurrection of the dead.
Rev. Carl Burnham, beloved pastor of the Chapel on Fir Hill in Akron, Ohio, wrote in 1962, just prior to his Homegoing, “When I die, if my family wishes to inscribe anything on my gravestone, I would like it to be the promise of Jesus Christ in Hebrews 13:5, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” For in due season the springtime will arrive…Then, when the resurrection sings itself in the robin’s glad song, and bursting buds defy the death grip of winter, and you walk upon the yielding earth near my grave—remember that my soul is not there, but rather it is absent from the body, present with the Lord. And somewhere, the atoms that make up my brain, my heart—my body—will be sending out resurrection radiations of a frequency too high for any earthly Geiger counter to record. But if you place the meter of God’s Word alongside that cemetery plot and adjust the settings to Hebrews 13:5, you will receive this reading: “He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
Jacob learned the truth of Hebrews 13:5, for God appeared to him in chapter 46 and said, “Jacob, Jacob…I am the God of you father. Don’t be afraid…I myself will go down with you…”
Even in death, You can trust God, He will never leave or forsake you.